


one good thing left

by bokutoma



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Anders Lives, Anders Loves Cats, Anders Needs a Hug, Anders Positive, Gen, Post-Canon, Reunions, i mean like the canon of the game, listen he just really deserves the world, mahariel has a soft spot, not canon period
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-12 10:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15993383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: four months after the destruction of the kirkwall chantry, anders has lost everything: his friends, his home, even his lover, sadie. desolate and lost, he contemplates giving up, until a face from his past shows up and gives him something to live for.





	one good thing left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inuy21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inuy21/gifts).



> since awakening has the timeline all weird, i've decided that i'm doing as i please

If Anders could feel anything, he was certain it would be nothing but an overwhelming torrent of pain and loss.

As it was, he was like an undead corpse, merely breathing, not living. Hawke had left him, unable to stand by him in the wake of all she'd lost. He couldn't blame her. She had lost one thing after another, each time trying to build herself stronger, only to have happiness forcibly wrenched away from her.

He had never had anything at all. He was used to emptiness. 

Still, for someone who should have been used to the feeling, he was mourning her loss deeply. Some part of him, the part that still yearned for sunlight, had thought of her as a fixture that could become permanent. He had hoped that one day, they could create that together.

Justice was far more present in his mind these days, numbing the pain he was certain he should be feeling. It was almost a comfort, to know that Justice would never leave him,  _could_ never leave him. Then he remembered everything the two of them had done, and he grieved.

How long he carried on like that, he didn't know. It could have been weeks. It could have been years. It could have been one eternal, excruciating day. Either way, he was reaching his breaking point. Where he would fall when that happened, he didn't know.

There was no one left to pick up the pieces.  

* * *

When he heard the knock at the door of the ramshackle inn he was staying at, he didn't know how long it had been since he last had risen.

 _Twice, the sun has gone down,_ Justice said.  _Once, it has risen._

Perhaps it was the innkeeper. Although he had paid for four more nights, he had not come down for supper. She was kind enough, he supposed, but he had no interest in fueling a body that had little to live for anymore.

Knuckles rapped sharply against the splintered wood of the door.

"I'm coming," Anders rasped. Perhaps it was templars. Perhaps he no longer cared.

 _No,_ Justice protested, but it was feeble, and Anders wondered if Fade spirits ever tired of their duty, their identity. Maker knew he tired of his.

The door didn't swing open as much as wobble as he pulled it, and he felt a stray splinter poke through the delicate pad of a fingertip. It didn't faze him.

What did, however, was the face on the other side of the threshold.

"Commander," he said, the dryness in his voice a combination of disuse and his own lack of energy. "What a pleasant and unexpected surprise."

Lyna Mahariel, a woman he hadn't seen in a decade, since he was still in Ferelden and Karl was still a person that he could save if he had enough belief. Lyna Mahariel, the Hero of Ferelden and Commander of the Grey, Arlessa of Amaranthine. Lyna Mahariel, a woman he might have considered a friend once.

He didn't know why she was here, but something stirred in him at the sight of her. Perhaps it was Justice, content to see a familiar face in a world full of unknowns, or perhaps it was the final resurgence of the half dead hope in him. Either way, he was displeased, and only grew more so at her silence.

"Are you here to chastise me, Commander? Arrest me, or execute me yourself? Surely something must be done about the maleficar who destroyed Kirkwall."

"It's good to see you, Anders," she said.

In what felt like another lifetime, he might have exploded at that, called her names and flown into a rage. Now, he was simply tired. "Answer the question, Commander."

"Lyna. I'm not your commander, and haven't been for years." She paused, and whatever she was thinking, he couldn't read it on her face. "I've brought you something."

"You don't make a dead man your charity case."

She snorted. "I see no corpses here. Only a foolish man and his equally misguided companion."

"Misguided?" It is the only protest he can muster, only pushed past his lips by rote repitition and Justice's own natural need. 

"You don't have to die for what you've done," she said, her eyes as firm and commanding as they had always been. "Your mistake is that you want to. I won't stop you, if that's really what you desire, but you have a cause to live for, as well as a little extra incentive."

And with that, she pulls a squirming bundle from her pack.

For the first time in what might have been forever, Anders felt a flicker of interest ignite in his heart.

"Is that..." he began, too hesitant to be hopeful. Then the bundle shifted more, the blanket it was nestled in falling to the side, and it meowed. "Ser Pounce-a-lot!"

Immediately, he reached for the cat, and Lyna handed both Pounce and the blanket over, a tiny smile blooming at the corners of her mouth. Ser Pounce-a-lot had been everything he had, a symbol of his free future when he was conscripted into the Wardens. He had also been the proof that mages would never be able to quit trading one bad circumstance for another until change was forced. He ran a gentle, shaking finger along the stripes that crossed Pounce's body. The cat purred with contentment.

"Where did you find him?" he asked after what must have been only a couple minutes.

"When I returned from Orlais, I was most displeased to find that you had fled and that Stroud had driven you off. He is a good man, I believe, but far too dedicated to old ideals." Her eyes were trained steadily on him, eyes of a hunter, and yet Anders hadn't felt more comfortable being seen since Sadie. "Ser Pounce-a-lot was in the Crown and Lion. They had been told he was an excellent mouser and were feeding him well, but they were more than happy to part with him when I informed them who I was."

"Of course you were," Anders cooed, setting down both the cat and himself on the bed. He began to stroke Pounce's stomach, who playfully batted at his hand. "You were the best mouser they had ever seen, weren't you?"

He felt more than saw the warm smile that crossed his old commander's face. For all that she had been untouchable, the inviolable Hero of Ferelden, she was also a woman who had cared for him, cared for her inferiors as friends above all. Perhaps it was unique among the people who would sacrifice all for victory; perhaps he had been spoiled by her kindness, a product of the Blight, where she was too green to push others away. Either way, she was his friend, and of that, he could not forget.

"Thank you, Lyna," he said quietly, pulling Pounce into his arms and scratching his head. "You cannot know what this means to me."

"I have been alone before," she said in an equally soft tone. "You don't have to be."

"Do you think I made the right decision?"

There was no hesitation in her answer. "It was the only thing you could do. I have nothing to say, no judgment I can make. In war, victory. This was a war fought for ages. You have dealt a decisive blow. No one could have done more with so little."

"That's not an answer," said the spirit in him.

"It is," she said, and Anders understood. "Safe travels, my friend. There is a room reserved for you in a week's time, a day or two down the road. You'll find a bath and a decent meal waiting for you. It's up to you whether you choose to take it. Just remember that you have others who depend on you."

Anders felt the ghost of a smile quirk his mouth. "Safe travels, Lyna. Something tells me we'll need a hero very soon."

With another soft smile, she set down several sovereigns on the rickety wooden table by his bedside and walked out, the only proof of her visit the sparkle of gold and the warmth purring in his lap.

Perhaps there was something for him after all.

**Author's Note:**

> 10/03/18: edits


End file.
